


Ghosted in the Library

by amsch (calendulae)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Meet-Ugly, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, are scott and clint fuckbuddies? perhaps, background scott lang, fyi this is not scary...it's dumb fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendulae/pseuds/amsch
Summary: Rumor has it the 5th floor of the campus library is haunted by a mysterious presence.Steve Rogers does not believe in ghosts, so spending the night there to earn fifty bucks should be easy as pie.





	Ghosted in the Library

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gigglepud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigglepud/gifts).



> This was written to fill a prompt for the ShrinkyClinks Fest 2019, thank you mods for putting this event on!
> 
> And thanks to odetteandodile for the beta read as always!

 

“I saw a ghost last night,” Clint announced, looking up from the bowl of Captain Crunch he’d been pensively gazing into. He stared around the breakfast table, making intense eye contact with Sam, Steve and Natasha as they all considered this piece of news.

“Sweet,” Sam said, and resumed his conversation with Natasha.

Steve gave Clint a thumbs up and went back to looking over his notes for the sociology midterm he had in an hour. He suppressed a yawn, tired from a late shift at the coffee shop and not at all looking forward to today’s packed schedule and another late night of homework ahead of him.

“I SAW! A GHOST LAST NIGHT,” Clint said again, loud enough this time that all the groggy students in their corner of the dining hall looked up from their coffee. “I’m serious, you guys! I couldn’t sleep all night thinking about it. It was fucking insane. I’m a changed man.”

“Were you high?” Sam asked gently. “Was it one of Loki’s edibles? Because last time you had one of those you thought you could time travel.”

Clint sputtered indignantly. “No, I was not high. I was completely sober, thank you very much. And you can’t prove that I _didn’t_ time travel.”

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Steve said, shutting his notebook. “I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t a ghost.”

“I’m with Steve.” Natasha tipped her chair back on two legs and crossed her arms. “Pics or it didn't happen.”

“It was in the library. Approximately 3 am....the Devil's Hour.”

"Is that supposed to be like, a haunted facial expression?" Natasha asked. "Because you just look constipated." 

“Okay,” Sam said,  “I’ll ask the obvious question here - why were you in the library at 3 am? It’s closed overnight.”

Clint sighed. “I knew you guys would get caught up in the boring details. Don’t you want to know what the ghost looked like?”

“Clint,” Natasha said, her eyes narrowing, in a tone of voice they all knew and feared.

“Fine, I might have been doing some off-the-record exploring. Scott has a master key because of his job on the janitorial staff and we sometimes….um...explore campus buildings at night. Just for kicks. It’s not that weird. It’s probably not even illegal.”

“C’mon, Clint,” Steve said. “You’d probably just had too much coffee and not enough sleep, and you saw a jacket someone left on a shelf, with a vent blowing on it or something-”

“No! It was real! It moved! It was like, this big hulking, man shape, with a scary pale face, and I shone my flashlight on it and it, like, reflected back into my eyes and I was temporarily blinded, so I just started running until I found a door. There was some screaming. Scott’s a screamer.”

Steve and Sam exchanged a Look.

“Where did you say this was again?” Natasha asked, looking thoughtful.

“Library, 5th floor stacks.”

“You know, there have been rumors. The campus conspiracy theory mill has been saying the library is haunted all year. And now that I think about it, Maria said something about never wanting to go to the 5th floor again. And she’s very sensible.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Sam said. “Didn’t really pay attention to it before, but yeah, people say there’s a ghost in the library. I pictured an Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Bronte type, long dress white lady ghost.”

“That would feel more thematic for a library,” Natasha agreed.

“So you guys believe me?” Clint asked, looking slightly desperate.

“Eh, why not,” Sam said. Natasha shrugged and took a bite of toast.

“Absolutely not,” Steve said, setting down his coffee cup with slightly too much force. “I believe you saw something, but there has to be a logical explanation for it.”

“It was a _ghost_ , Steve! Why don’t go go try getting chased through the dark library by a terrifying noncorporeal entity and see if you’re such a nonbeliever after that!”

“Fine!” Steve said, standing up. This wasn't as dramatic as he'd hoped, given that he wasn't exactly an imposing height, so he planted his hands firmly on the table as well to add a little more oomph to his dramatic gesture. “I’ll prove it’s not haunted myself.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Natasha asked. 

“I’ll give you twenty bucks to sleep over on the 5th floor,” Clint said. “If you see the ghost I get to keep my money.”

“Deal,” Steve said. “I love libraries! It was one of my childhood fantasies to spend the night there.”

“Nerd,” Sam said mildly into his orange juice.

Steve ignored this. “I have to pull an all-nighter tonight anyways, I have a 10 page paper due tomorrow. Perfect timing.” He glared at Clint across the table.

“Have fun being terrorized by a weirdly reflective, malicious spirit that probably wants to suck out your life force......actually, speaking of that....what do you guys think a ghost blowjob would be like?”

"Is the ghost giving or receiving? Or are you both ghosts?" Natasha asked, looking genuinely interested for the first time that morning.

Steve took this as his cue to leave.

 

 

* * *

 

  

News of Steve’s planned overnighter spread quickly.

He received a text from Tony while he was scarfing down a quick lunch.

_heard ur pulling a one-man ghostbusters tonight, good luck lol_

After classes, he was packing up his books and trying to fit them into his backpack with Sam’s sleeping bag when his phone started buzzing again.

  
**Maria Hill:**

_I don’t know what you heard from Clint but whoever/whatever i saw on the 5th floor was actually pretty fucking scary. Are you sure you want to do this just to prove some dumb point?_

_oh wait, this is Steve Rogers we’re talking about, of course you do_

 

**Sam:**

_Text me if you need me later, I'll be around_

 

**Wanda M.:**

_Heard about your library thing. i’ve gotten some serious weird energy in there before. there’s a presence on the 5th floor, for real_

 

Steve ignored all of these except Sam, to whom he sent a thumbs up emoji.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Scott had let silently him in a service entrance, his usually affable face pinched with nerves, and then had sprinted towards his van before the door even finished closing. Steve had puffed his way up the stairs to the 5th floor, as was the deal. He’d found a suitable corner where no one could sneak up on him, and set up Sam’s sleeping bag and a small camping lantern, the warm glow creating little sanctuary. It had been a few hours already, and he was feeling good about his paper, thanks to the quiet and lack of distractions. He could use a walk to stretch out his stiff muscles.

 

He stepped out of the little circle of light and wandered down the row of books, out into a central hallway. There was a single fluorescent light on at the end of the corridor, seemingly miles away, weakly casting a washed out, sickly glow down the linoleum towards him. The shadows between the stacks of books running perpendicular remained a thick, impenetrable black. He stood there for a second at the end of his row, feeling like he would be stepping over some unseen boundary if he ventured into the light. As he hesitated, an inky shadow moved in one of the rows, swiftly crossing the lighted corridor into another row. Steve’s heart stalled for a second. Had he really just seen that? Or had his vision played a trick on him? Suddenly taking a stroll wasn’t so enticing. He hurried back down the row to his corner, where he pulled his headphones on and flung himself back into his paper.

 

It was nearing 4 am by the time he looked up again. A couple times he’d thought he’d heard a noise, but it was probably just creaky pipes and his own bad hearing to blame. He needed to move around or he’d fall asleep, and he still had a few finishing touches to make. He marched to the end of the row.

“It’s just a library, Rogers,” He said out loud. The sound of his own voice was comforting.  “You’re getting freaked out over nothing. We’re just gonna take a walk.” He stepped out into the corridor, facing the light at the end, and his footsteps echoed all the way down. His breathing was harsh and loud.

Something cold touched his shoulder.

Steve screeched and whirled around, only to faceplant into a solid mass. He flailed his limbs wildly, screaming at the top of his lungs as something even colder touched him again, holding on to his wrist, which he wrenched away and sprinted down the corridor, not looking back, bursting out of the service exit and getting as far away from the library as he could before shakily dialing Sam's number and gasping for him to pick him up, and bring his spare inhaler.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Breakfast the next morning was weird, to say the least.

“It wasn’t a ghost, Clint, I’ve already said it a million times. It was solid. Could a ghost do this?”

Steve stood up and held out his wrist, where there was a faint purple bruise that was very clearly in the pattern of finger marks.

“It could still be a ghost! Ghosts can kill people! I don’t know!”

Natasha and Sam were wearing identical concerned looks, Nat's with a touch more of ‘ _my friends are all idiots_ ’. Sam had seen Steve’s face when he picked him up and knew he wasn’t just trying to mess with Clint.

“I think there’s someone living in the library. It’s the only explanation.  I guess I’ll have to go back and get my stuff after this, and…” Steve trailed off, thinking of the dead silence, the solid, cold bulk of the thing he’d fought against, and the icy touch on his wrist. He sat down heavily.

“I’ll go get it,” Natasha said. “I’ll look around for any evidence anyone’s been living there, while I’m at it.”

“It’s not that uncommon for college students to be homeless,” Sam said. “Maybe it’s just someone down on their luck.”

Steve nodded and took a drink of his tea. Herbal tea today - he didn't need any more jitters. That had to be the explanation. Nothing scary, nothing supernatural. Just a fellow student, presumably very much alive. He put it out of his mind.

 

 

“Steve, you are NOT going to guess what I just found on MissedU!" Clint shouted, bursting into Steve's room later that day. “I was browsing, procrastinating, you know how it is-"

“What’s missed you?”

“It’s missed connections, but just for students here. Do you not use it? I like to see how many times Nat gets mentioned per week. I have a running tally. Anyways, listen to this one. Posted today, 6am:

 

_Library, 5th floor, very early morning. Blonde Male. I’m sorry for scaring you. I didn’t mean to._

 

Clint looked up from his phone. "There's no way a ghost could post on an app, right? So this means it really is just a normal person who might be living in the library? I'm not sure if I feel relieved or disappointed, to be honest."

 

Steve felt a surge of guilt that he'd screamed and flailed like he had, when likely the other person had been trying to keep him from hurting himself.

 

"Thanks, Clint," he said absently. Clint was now reading missed connections he'd screenshotted out loud to Steve.

 

"I have to apologize," Steve said, mostly to himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Later that night, nearly 24 hours after entering the library for the first time, a mildly annoyed looking Scott let him in again. Steve had come prepared, no sleeping bag this time, but with a backpack full of Cup O'Noodles and whatever other snacks he'd been able to scrounge up last minute.

 

He walked slowly down the long, dark corridor, letting his footsteps echo loudly. After a few minutes, he was in the center of the room and paused, listening for any signs of movement. It was silent and dark, just as it had been the night before.

"Hello?" he called out, his voice trembling a tiny bit. "It's me, my name's Steve. I was here last night? I saw your message. I thought we could talk or..." he trailed off. This was stupid.

Just as he was turning around to leave, head home and curl up in bed and pretend this never happened, a soft voice spoke from the stacks.

"Hi Steve."

A figure detached from the shadows and Steve could see, as the weak fluorescent light fell on the man's face, that he really was, in no way, a ghost. Just a very tall, solid looking man in a black hoodie, his large shoulders slightly hunched, with long hair falling in his face and an apologetic half smile on his surprisingly soft mouth.

"Hi, uh-"

"Bucky."

"Bucky. Okay, cool. Um. I'm sorry about last night. It was like, this stupid bet with my friends, everyone thinks the library's haunted, also I brought some food, do you want some? Are you hungry?"

Bucky paused for a second, looking taken aback, and then nodded hesitantly. 

Steve stood there holding his backpack in his hands. "Should we find somewhere to sit, or, maybe I'll just leave this and go..." Wow, he was really and truly embarrassing himself. It was rare that he was reduced to this kind of mess by another person's mere presence and a pair of pretty blue eyes.

Bucky turned and started walking to the other end of the floor, the opposite corner where Steve has been camping out. "Follow me," he said, with a quick smile over his shoulder.

Steve followed, clutching his backpack to his chest with both hands. Bucky led him to a service door that nearly blended in with the wall, and opened it to reveal a small room. Was Bucky going to murder Steve right here in the library and stash his body where it would slowly mummify and no one would ever find it? Then there really would be a ghost on the 5th floor and Clint could suck it. Wait, not like that. Now he was thinking about ghost dick-

 

Bucky was staring at Steve like he was a rare and beautiful wild animal that might bolt at any second. He looked so earnest, with a little crease in between his eyebrows, that Steve decided right then, ghost blowjob or no ghost blowjob, and there that he didn't even care if he got murdered. He looked around the room for the first time. It was probably originally a janitorial closet, based on the large industrial sink in the corner. But the rest of it was cozy, tidy and intentionally organized in a way that surprised Steve. There was a sleeping bag on a sad-looking air mattress, and a hot plate on a small counter, and a couple of shelves filled with non-perishables and a few neatly folded clothes. It was warm, probably thanks to the large hot water heater squatting in one corner. There was even a small window looking out on the quad.

 

Bucky looked around, clearly seeing it with Steve's fresh eyes, and started to mumble something, but Steve cut him off.

"It's homey. I like your picture." He pointed to the single photo hung on the wall, a black and white photo of what looked to be Brooklyn sometime in the early 20th century.

Bucky looked at the picture, but didn't say anything. He rubbed the back of his neck, taking his hand out of his sweatshirt pocket, and Steve started - it was made out of some kind of shiny silver metal. Bucky cringed and stuck it back in his pocket.

"Long story," he mumbled.

"Oh! That's why your hand was so cold last night! And Clint's reflection thing!" Steve said suddenly. He rubbed his wrist unconsciously, and Bucky's eyes darted to the bruise there.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. Your wrists are just...really small. I'm usually pretty good about...being gentle, but..."

"It's okay. Not your fault at all," Steve said, trying to smile reassuringly. He pulled out two Cup O'Noodles out of his bag and held them out.

Bucky flipped a switch on an electric kettle next to the hot plate. He pushed some books off of a wooden crate, setting them in a stack next to the bed, and sat down on it, motioning for Steve to sit on the single chair.

Steve tried to think of an appropriate conversation topic to discuss with the surprisingly hot guy with a metal arm living in a secret room in the library.

"So you're not a ghost!" he said conversationally.

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"I'm...actually a student," Bucky said.

"Oh! That's great! What are you studying?"

Bucky looked sheepish. "Child development," he said. "I want to work with kids. Like, maybe as a kindergarten teacher. Or something. I'm don't really know what I'm doing."

"You think any of us know what we're doing?" Steve said with a laugh. "I know I don't! Most of us are just trying to make it through the day or the next midterm or to the weekend."

Bucky's eyes crinkled in the corners, and the tension in his shoulders relaxed a bit. The electric kettle was boiling, and he got up to pour the water into the cups, handing Steve one, along with a plastic fork.

"I thought you were going to laugh at me about wanting to be a kindergarten teacher," he admitted, looking up at Steve through his eyelashes after he sat back down on his crate. "You're the first person I've told that to. In fact, you're the first person I've talked to in a while. Sorry if I'm a little rusty. No pun intended." He wiggled his silver fingers at Steve.

Oh. Cool. The hot library recluse was funny too. Steve was fucked.

"No, this is...nice. I like talking to you," Steve said, surprised that it was true. "And I think it's awesome that you want to work with kids."

“I've always loved being around kids. It makes me feel...they want to understand everything. They're so curious and imaginative, and everything is new to them, and when you you get to watch them learn something, it's like you can see it in a new way too. They’re untainted by the world."

He sighed and stirred his noodles. "But...I don't have much practical experience. And I haven't been around them since...well, I kind of, uh, went through some fucked up shit. For a long time. And it's only recently that I've been able to start thinking about the future at all. Helping kids was the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to think of how I wanted to spend my days, but...I was terrified I'd accidentally hurt them. I can't even imagine if I..." Bucky shuddered. He wasn't even looking at Steve, staring down into his noodles like he was telling them his story instead.

"I was spending a lot of time at the library, catching up on things I'd missed, and happened on the university's course catalog. I found the course listings and I thought, maybe if I learned everything I could about kids I could be safe for them to be around. So I just kind of...started going to classes. No one noticed. And I was squatting in an apartment across town, but once I found this room I just kind of...moved in. But being the library ghost doesn't make it very easy to make friends." He smiled ruefully at Steve.

"Well, you have one friend now, at least," Steve said, smiling back. "I think it's really brave, what you're doing. Whatever you went through, it takes a lot of courage to get back out into the world and pursue something. And I bet kids love you."

Bucky blushed and rubbed the back of his neck again, the metal glinting.

"Kids love shiny stuff," Steve said, pointing at Bucky's hand. "Everyone knows that. So you'll already have an in with them."

Bucky laughed, with a funny sideways smile that made Steve's stomach do something unusual.

"So, what about you? I've been going on and on about myself and I didn't even ask you what you're studying. And what did you mean when you said you were sleeping over at the library on a bet?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

The conversation rambled on, and they moved from their uncomfortable seats to sit side by side on Bucky's air mattress, until eventually, Steve's tired eyes were drooping and he was drifting off to sleep, his head resting on Bucky's shoulder. When he woke up, the early morning sun was shining through the small window, and Bucky was asleep on his stomach next to him, his hair fallen over his face and his hand tucked under his chin. Steve tried to get up, but he was stiff and jostled the air mattress, waking Bucky up.

"I'm sorry," Steve whispered, collecting his shoes and backpack. "I didn't mean to fall asleep here."

"It's okay," Bucky mumbled sleepily. 

He hesitated as Bucky stood up and stretched, sitting down on the chair to slowly put on his shoes. Steve couldn't believe this adorable, bedheaded, pillow-creased person was the wall of icy muscle that he'd been terrified by, despite being a good head taller than Steve, with biceps the size of Steve's thighs. 

Steve felt a twinge in his stomach at the thought of leaving (and the biceps...and the thought of thighs, of which Bucky had a pair the width of tree trunks, he now noticed). He didn't want to go. Or more specifically, he didn't want to leave _Bucky_. There was something about him, something between them, and Steve wanted to get to know him, make him laugh, lean his head against his big, broad chest and fall asleep. 

"Would you want to come to breakfast with me? I have a meal plan, I'll swipe you in as a guest. My friends will probably be there, they're nice. They’d like you."

Bucky looked surprised, then pleased. “Really?”

“Really. And you’ve already met Clint, so you have a head start. Plus, there’s pancakes.”

Bucky grinned, and the smile transformed his face. He held out his hand to Steve and pulled him up easily, his large, warm hand easily enveloping Steve's. “Then what are we waiting for?”

 


End file.
